


I Was Hoping I Was

by seagullist



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Forced Marriage, Forced Underage Marriage, I'm Sorry, domestic abuse, hell if i know where this came from, underage marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seagullist/pseuds/seagullist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The custom of marrying off omegas before puberty has been illegal for decades, but there are people to whom the law does not apply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Old values, old superstitions, lurk long after society has dismissed them. The custom of marrying off omegas before puberty has been illegal for decades, but the justifications and excuses for why it's healthiest for omegas, families, and society in general that no one ever experience a single heat outside of wedlock are as numerous and pernicious as they are discredited by modern science. The simple fact is that there are people to whom the law does not apply.

Disadvantaged children are the easiest; even the most conscientious child welfare offices are overburdened and underfunded, and it is all too common for a "traditionally-minded" alpha to foster an orphaned omega and brush off the social workers' oversight. And at the other end of the scale, the ultra-wealthy who experience no consequences for their actions will award their own children to their business associates as openly as they snort cocaine off Soviet prostitutes' buttocks.

It is 1983; twenty-eight years before they will meet, but their lives are already forming parallels.

Tony Stane (thirteen years old; six years married) has finally been declared by his doctors to be old enough for the tubal ligation surgery his husband has been pushing for.

Clint Duquesne (eleven years old; seven months married) has barely survived his botched back-alley abortion. When it becomes clear he won't go into heat anymore, his husband abandons him. He saves his place with the circus by an immediate re-marriage to Buck Chisholm.

Bruce Sterns (fifteen years old; four years married) delivers a healthy baby boy. The tests come back omega, and his husband puts the child up for adoption.


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce stares at the wall in front of him. Quietly pushes down the anger and hurt, like he always does. Like he always has.

Nine months he’s carried his baby, hoping it would be healthy. Three months he’s been setting up the nursery, dreaming of raising a family. Forty-three hours in labor. Five of those hours driving to the one maternity hospital his husband had heard of that would wink at an underaged omega with an adult alpha. And at a word from his husband _Bruce’s son_ is taken out of his arms, and won’t even have the name Bruce chose written on his birth certificate.

 _Push it down. Don’t complain. Don’t say a word._ He can’t fight this. He knows exactly how few rights he has even in theory, as a minor in “foster care”. In practice, anybody traditional enough to recognize his marriage (say, his obstetrician, for just one example) wouldn’t go against his husband’s wishes to save his life.

“Real shame,” his husband is saying. “All that work for an omega. At least you’ll have another heat, and we can try for an alpha we can be _proud_ of.”

Bruce’s father’s favorite drunken rant was how disgusted he was that his wife had never given him an alpha. How useless both she and Bruce were. They both spent Bruce’s childhood bruised and bleeding; he’s pretty sure he was born bruised. His husband isn’t nearly that bad, especially while Bruce has been pregnant, but he’ll still take a swing at him now and then, and Bruce knows he can’t protect a child his husband doesn’t want, any more than his mother could protect him.

The doctor approves Bruce to leave, and his husband helps him into his street clothes and out to the car. “Now let’s get home,” he says, and that’s the last straw. Even as much practice as Bruce has tamping down his emotions, this is the most he’s ever had at once and it spills over. Avoiding a punch isn’t worth keeping his trap shut.

“No,” Bruce answers. “No. We’ve both been awake for three days. We are _not_ driving all the way back to Dayton on no sleep just because you didn’t think to ask the doctor if there’s a traditionally-minded motel around here.” His voice is soft and calm and even. It's not an outburst. Bruce doesn't have outbursts.

“Honey--” his husband starts, the term of endearment proving he’s more doubtful than angry so Bruce holds up a hand and answers the argument he’s already prepared for.

“Crashing the car would cost more.” Besides the money, Bruce also knows his husband won’t do anything that’d attract police attention.

He finally nods, “You’re right. Always the smart one, sweetheart,” and gets Bruce settled into the car before going back in to ask for a motel that won’t report them. (Surely there will be one, this close to a conservative hospital. Lots of crossover business.) Bruce takes the moment of solitude to shove his grief back into the box. A spillover like that is always dangerous, even as satisfying as it can be to argue and as well as this one turned out.

Bruce is silent for the three minutes it takes them to go down the street, and during the check-in process as the elderly alpha behind the counter leers at him while the not-quite-middle-aged omega accepts their payment and has Bruce’s husband sign the register. He shakes his head wordlessly to the offer of dinner (it’s closer to lunchtime, but they’re both exhausted), and makes his way to their room alone while his husband runs to the burger hut next door.

He’s facing the wall when his husband joins him in bed, and doesn’t turn to face him like he usually does when his husband slips an arm around his waist. He feels his husband sigh behind him, but he doesn’t react.

“What’s _wrong_ , honey? The nursery’ll keep. Your tits’ll go down.” Bruce doesn’t answer. His baby is gone. “Are you worried about the omega? He’ll be fine. Tammy’ll get him married off, good and proper.”

Bruce was eight when his father killed his mother. She’d turned eighteen and told him she was leaving him. Brian was taken into custody and was appointed a lawyer, and eventually landed in front of a judge who sentenced him to eleven years. Bruce was also taken into custody and was appointed a social worker, Tammy, and eventually landed in front of a priest who sentenced him to life.

~ ~ ~

 _Declared._ Tony watches the ice in his scotch, tracking the thermal stresses where the cubes might split before they melt. There are two rings on the hand holding the glass.

He got the diamond when he was three and he was _declared_ old enough to wear an engagement ring without putting it in his mouth and choking on it. He got the sapphire when he was seven and he was _declared_ old enough to make it through the ceremony and the reception without throwing a tantrum. Both stones have been reset multiple times as he outgrew the rings they were on. Now he’s just graduated high school and he has _declared_ himself old enough to help himself to his husband’s decanter.

He doesn’t have the diploma yet. They’ll be mailing it to him while he convalesces from his surgery. And it’s the middle of the semester so there’s no ceremony and none of his classmates are graduating with him. But he’s finished his classwork and taken his exams and he’s not going back. He’s graduated.

His husband comes into the office and gives him a perfunctory kiss. “I’ll allow the scotch since it’s a big day,” he says, “but I want you to follow it with a glass of water before we cut off your fluid intake at eight.”

“Yeah, yeah, protective. Question: did you even once consider getting surgery yourself? You know I’m forty times more likely to die from this than you are from a vasectomy. Not to mention the weeks of recovery.” Tony already knows the answer; he just likes to be objectionable. It’s a lot of fun. “If you were the one getting snipped you could just ice your balls and be back to work the same day.”

“You’re thirteen, don’t say ‘balls’.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I can suck on them but not say them. No, seriously, though, Obie, this is great. If you got snipped I’d never be able to cheat on you for fear I’d get pregnant and you’d know it couldn’t be yours. Even if neither of us got the knife because you decided you wanted kids after all, I’d still be limited to white guys. But this way I’m free to screw MIT’s whole student body. Faculty. Janitors.”

His husband gives him the _not going to dignify that with a response_ look, but then undermines it by smacking him upside the head and saying “Just don’t get picked up for public lewdness.”

The smack turns into petting his hair, then a hand on his back leading him down to the parking garage where they get into the limo. It’s a sedan, not a stretch, and the chauffeur’s just wearing a suit so the protestors out front let them through with nothing more than a few suspicious looks.

Anti-war crowd today, mostly. As usual. There’s a _Stark Industries pollutes rivers_ sign. His husband’s hand on his stops him before Tony can roll down the tinted window and yell at the beta with the _Free Tony Stark -- Obadiah Stane is a pedophile_ that his name isn’t Stark anymore.

He does want the surgery. He doesn’t want kids, doesn’t want to ruin his body with pregnancy; he’s just a little sore he wasn’t asked at all first.

He pours himself another scotch from the bar under the seat. His husband lets him.

~ ~ ~

Clint knows how lucky he is that anybody anywhere wanted a used, broken omega. That it was the circus’s marksman is a _gift_.

He doesn’t have to leave the best home he’s ever known. He doesn’t have to leave his brother, who’s healthy enough to _earn_ his place here, instead of depending on a husband being willing to work twice as hard to make up for him (one and a half times, if the lingering weakness and belly pain ever go away enough he can go back to being in the trapeze show sometimes like he was before). When he first got to try the bow, it was like the skies parted and angels sang, and now he gets to practice with it _every day_. As much as he fantasizes about being a star someday, even just learning to shoot is enough for him to be happy.

This is where he wants to be. He’s not going to screw it up by struggling and crying every night when his husband mounts him.

Without a heat there’s no specific time that’s right to have sex, which means there’s no wrong time to have sex. He’s going to be tight and dry every day of his life; his husband still has marital rights and Clint’s just going to have to get used to it.

Sex really isn’t so bad. The worst has already happened, and been taken care of. They told him when he married his _first_ husband that the circus couldn’t manage a baby but he got pregnant anyway. After that scare the rest is easy.

Or it will be as long as his new husband never catches him throwing up from the pain of having a knot forced inside him.

They’re here for two weeks; set up in a field about ten miles outside of city limits. Clint doesn’t have any money but he hitchhikes into town and steals two bottles of antiemetics from the drugstore. Of course the druggist doesn’t catch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Myth: Taking an omega’s virginity during their first heat will shape them perfectly and permanently to your knot and they can never be satisfied with anybody else.  
> Fact: No it won’t and yes they can.
> 
> Myth: Giving birth but not nursing will trigger an immediate heat.  
> Fact: No it won’t.
> 
> Myth: Omegas will sicken and die if they sleep any way but naked and in the arms of their naked alpha. Or if their alpha sleeps without them.  
> Fact: No they won’t and not that either.
> 
> Fact: Some people are more than happy to ignore any science that disagrees with them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One thing that differentiates all three of these alphas from most others traditional enough to marry a minor is that they approve of their omegas studying and, someday, having a job.

“Your elbow’s too high, you’re not in line.” Clint’s husband repositions his arm, and Clint looses the arrow. It hits seven inches off the bullseye. “Better.”

Clint nocks another and, at his husband’s nod, looses it as well. He keeps shooting, and his husband keeps correcting his posture here and there as it slips, for almost an hour before he gets dizzy and can no longer stand. Then, he shoots sitting down.

People pause to watch on their way through, as they do their own part to prepare for the show this afternoon. Clint doesn't take his eyes off his targets, but he hopes Barney sees him shooting and is proud of him.

His shoulders are burning and his fingers are chapped, but he shoots on. He's survived sepsis and taking a knot outside of heat; pain means nothing. He doesn't quit until his arm stops obeying him altogether. By then he’s gotten twenty-four bullseyes, three of them in a row.

His husband praises his progress as he half-carries him back to their trailer, and Clint thinks he’s flying for his part rather than walking. He’s getting stronger. He’s getting better. And the site they’re in has power _and_ water, so he can take a hot shower and ease his shoulder pain a little before he shoots again tomorrow.

The shower cubicle is too small to fall down in (the whole trailer is too small to fall down in), so his husband leaves him alone and goes to do his own warm-up for the show. Clint gets the sweat and dust off and unsteadily gropes his way to the bed where his bookcase is.

(Some might call it a suitcase, but it's not full of suits. It's full of books. It's a bookcase.)

It's mostly full of books from students who'd forgotten their bags in the stands, but there are a few stolen from stores and libraries in towns they'd passed through. Clint takes out the algebra book and passes the time waiting for the show to get under way.

He doesn't need to watch the whole thing, and he prefers to miss the crowds coming and going, but he'd never miss his husband's act. After he's rested enough to walk to the big tent on his own, and he's sure even the stragglers are seated, he puts his book away and heads out.

Mrs. Carson is watching the gate; she barely glances at him before going back to counting money. He goes into the tent and sits on the grandstand stairs. Exactly where a fire marshall once scolded him for sitting, a few states back.

His husband is magnificent. Longbow, crossbow, rifle, pistol, he never misses. Clint loves to watch him, how effortless he makes it seem, the graceful trajectories of his arrows. It's beautiful.

~ ~ ~

It's disgustingly easy to return to normal life. He thought they'd be coming back from Akron with a baby and nothing would be the same, instead it's just the two of them like it always has been. Bruce permits himself to grieve while he dismantles the crib and changing table, but shoves the emotions back into their box as he shoves the furniture back into the closet.

Bruce is just getting breakfast onto the table when his husband comes in with the mail. “I thought I'd let you open this one,” he says, passing Bruce an envelope, and Bruce bites back his remark on how he _should_ be opening any mail addressed to him, it's not an indulgence on his husband's part, thank you very much.

The return address is Culver University.

Bruce weighs the envelope in his hands. Shouldn't an acceptance be thicker? But there's obviously more than one sheet of paper in it, a rejection only needs one sheet, doesn't it?

He _needs_ to be accepted to Culver. Not only is it the best nuclear physics school in the country, not only does it have the exact program to go into the exact career Bruce wants, but he’s pretty sure it's the only school he'd ever be allowed to attend, besides the University of Dayton, where his husband already works.

Academia doesn't pay well, and living slightly outside the law as they do is expensive when they have to leave town for things like routine health care. They have enough savings to pay for school but not to live on while Bruce goes to school. His husband can’t just take a few years off work. But Culver, Bruce’s _dream school_ Culver has offered his husband an adjunct professorship; it'd be a pay cut and a big step backwards on his tenure track, but they’ll be able to scrape by.

And if they're in another state, Bruce probably won't be walking down the street one day and see a small boy with his nose and his husband's chin holding hands with a 40-year-old alpha. Just thinking it is enough to turn his stomach, he doesn't want to live it.

His husband is eating, watching Bruce but not pushing him to hurry up and open it. Bruce is grateful for the consideration. Eventually the knowledge that his own breakfast isn't getting any more appetizing as it cools spurs him to pick up his own butter knife and slit the envelope open.

_Dear Mr. R. Bruce Sterns_

_Welcome to Culver University_

“I have been accepted into the MD-PhD program,” Bruce reads and has to lean hard against the table before he falls down. “I am being offered a _full scholarship._ ”

His husband grabs him around the waist and pulls him into his lap. “My little genius,” he says, and kisses Bruce on the temple. Together they re-read the acceptance letter and information on Bruce's scholarship. “I guess I'm going in today and giving my notice.”

Even already sitting, Bruce feels unsteady. This is really happening. His husband is really putting Bruce's education before his own career. Even though the scholarship means they don't have to spend their savings on tuition, his husband could still have balked on pride. But they've been married long enough for Bruce to tell a real promise from a fake one, and that one's real.

“Hey, we should celebrate! Why don't you cook us a turkey dinner tonight?” Yeah, somehow his husband really has the knack for bringing Bruce back to earth. Reminding him how little power he actually has in this relationship.

“It's a weekday, Sam. I’ve already taken three months maternity leave and I think Culver is allowed to rescind my acceptance if I just blow off the end of high school.”

“Come on, it's a special occasion! You can make up what you missed tomorrow.” His husband's hand closes tightly around his arm in a silent but familiar warning. _Obey now, and you can still hide the bruising under long sleeves. Keep talking and you're missing even more school to hide the black eye._ And just like that, Bruce isn't going to school today. It doesn't bode well for his classes once he gets to college.

His husband removes him from his lap and stands him up. “Well, I've got a busy day ahead of me, lots of things to put into motion. Did you make me a lunch or am I buying from the cafeteria?”

“I made you a lunch.” Bruce points to the paper bag on the counter. His husband takes the bag and kisses him on his way out the door. Bruce puts his uneaten breakfast into the refrigerator and starts on the dishes.

~ ~ ~

Tony wakes up so gently and naturally it takes him a moment to remember why his stomach hurts.

“Are you with me, this time?” his husband asks beside him. He's in a chair instead of in the bed with him, and fully dressed, but holding Tony's hand.

“This time?” Tony asks back. He seems to be in a cotton nightshirt, himself. He supposes anaesthetic is considered different from sleep.

“You've woken up incoherent three times already.” His thumb is rubbing gently on Tony's knuckles, which feels surprisingly good, and Tony gropes for the button to raise the head of the bed with his other hand. When he's upright, his husband leans over and they kiss. And kiss some more.

“Taking advantage of me before you know whether I'm competent?” Tony laughs, and his husband laughs with him. Then he sobers. “You have to get to work now that I'm awake, don't you?”

His husband runs his fingers through Tony's hair. That feels good too. “I do. I'm sorry, but your father needs me. And hey, you have company! Company you love even more than me!” He beams as he picks up a stack of books from the floor where they'd been out of Tony's line of sight.

“Multivariable calculus and AP physics?” Tony reads the spines of the books. They're his textbooks and his notebooks. That he doesn't need anymore.

“Your best friend in the world, homework. Show those MIT recruiters you're better than your classmates at everything while you're five years younger and recovering from major surgery.”

“I don't... have classmates anymore, Obie. I've finished those books. I've finished school. I finished it yesterday.”

“In the middle of the semester? No, you didn't. You're probably still a little confused from the anaesthetic. Maybe it _wasn't_ fair to kiss you, after all.”

Tony takes the top notebook off the stack and opens it. The work for all the last seven chapters of the calculus text is gone, the pages at the end clean and blank. He opens the text and reads it; he knows those questions. He could swear he already did them. Why aren't they in the notebook?

His husband mistakes his consternation for concentration and kisses him one last time. “I'll leave you two alone to get better acquainted. Please remember that I love you before you divorce me to run off with an attractive rotational force diagram.”

Tony manages to get a hold of himself long enough to kiss his husband back before he leaves, and tell him, “I love you, too.” But then he turns back to the books. The physics notebook is blank past the first two-thirds, too.

Maybe he really _didn't_ finish his schoolwork. Maybe he _is_ just muddled from the general anaesthetic.

Oh, well. His husband is right, anyway. He _does_ love doing math homework.


End file.
